Wacky Distortions...

This picture that I swapped from USA Today shows the type of distortion that a wide angle lens can produce. Years ago I noticed that my Panasonic Lumix point-and-shoot camera was producing these wild and wacky distortions when shooting groups. These types of distortions are nearly impossible to correct for in PS. I even mentioned it on this Forum. I stopped shooting groups with that camera but as you can see, It wasn't the camera...

 

LINK

Edited May 11, 2021 by William Michael

That aside, rather than attempt a post processing correction, I'd work with the distortion consciously, shooting with it in mind, and have it make a statement relative to the content of the picture.

 

Though this isn't distorted, it has that feel I'd be going for:

 

JEWISH GIANT (1970), by Diane Arbus.

 

It helps if you can find a room with a low ceiling and a person over seven feet tall.

Edited May 11, 2021 by William Michael

That photo of the Bidens and Carters is all the rage on social media and national news!

And that's why the old-fashioned 'banquet' cameras used a swing lens, and not a wideangle one!

 

There is a strong perspective effect. Note that former president Carter's feet and ankles look huge in comparison to the rest of him. However, the usual wideangle effect of stretching faces at the edge of the frame seems absent. Maybe auto lens-distortion correction had a hand in the weird appearance?

One way to manage the perspective "distortion", which exaggerates the size of nearer objects, is to convert from a linear to a cylindrical projection. An easy way to do this uses a panorama stitching program, such as PTGui. It is not without other effects, which you can plainly see in this uncropped example. Spherical projection would reduce both horizontal and vertical size distortion at the expense of "life in a bubble" effects.

 

LINK

Edited May 11, 2021 by William Michael

Very weird, looks almost like the Carter's are hand puppets, like Jeff Dunham's Walter.

You shrink as you age and these folks are both pushing 100.

I guessed 16 mm, full-frame. The lateral projection results are reasonably consistent with that value.

Can someone suggest what focal length would’ve produced such distortion?

I don't think an extreme wide-angle lens was used for the image - my guess is 24mm (FX; assuming, of course, that the image hasn't been cropped). Anything wider and there should be ceiling showing in the image. At 2m distance, a 24mm produces a FOV of 3m x 2m (horizontal vs vertical) and 3.6m diagonally across; these dimensions seems reasonable for the image shown.

 

PS: just saw Ed's estimate of 16mm. I doubt it as it would require the photographer to stand right by Jimmy Carter's feet (or else the ceiling would show). I doubt the room is that small - the photographer should be able to back away some 2m from the plane the two Carters are in.

Panorama stitching can also put together other kinds of distortion--

here at the Taj Mahal

(JDM+Photoshop projection--shown before)

[PN requests that we link to rather than post in line pictures we didn't take ourselves.]

 

That aside, rather than attempt a post processing correction, I'd work with the distortion consciously, shooting with it in mind, and have it make a statement relative to the content of the picture.

 

Though this isn't distorted, it has that feel I'd be going for:

 

JEWISH GIANT (1970), by Diane Arbus.

 

It helps if you can find a room with a low ceiling and a person over seven feet tall.

 

Another version, Sam.

Edited May 11, 2021 by William Michael

Whoa. that's weird indeed. My initial use of wide angle lenses put me off of them for a while. Now tho, I just try to be super careful if using one. Am I wrong in assuming it possible to see at least some of the distortion in the viewfinder?

Whoa. that's weird indeed. My initial use of wide angle lenses put me off of them for a while. Now tho, I just try to be super careful if using one. Am I wrong in assuming it possible to see at least some of the distortion in the viewfinder?

You will see the distortion if you look for it--unfortunately, the brain is very good at seeing what it wants to see rather than what is actually there.